The President Is Unraveling

PO1 Tony Holland He Lost it a Long Time Ago. It just keeps getting More Painfully Obvious with Each Passing Day.

I have never witnessed a more conflicted person than Trump. As a leader I find him ignorant, chaotic, unprincipled, toxic, ego centric, sick, and evil for bragging about the pandemic metrics. The irony is he thinks he is a greater leader than FDR and second to none except for Lincoln. Trump could not hold FDR's jock strap. He often presents two sides of the spectrum and exacerbates confusion and chaos. Here are some examples:

- I took early robust measures. We did not know it was coming.
- This will all go away. COVID-19 is a serious threat.
- The protesters are like Rosa Park. States need to be careful when opening up.
- 1,100,000 infected 69,000 dead. I did a great job preparing the country.
- Testing is adequate. Testing is not an imperative.
- The administration is doing a great job. We are not the ordering clerks for the states.
- I have great evidence the virus came from the Wuhan Lab. I can't tell you what the evidence is.

Let's look at the chaos Trump creates. His first year was marred by investigations, lawsuits (illegally using veterans charity funds, his taxes), and failed promises like reducing deficit. His second year he gave financial advantages to corporations with the intent of reducing funds to the poor, hungry, and disabled. He also started a trade war with China. Farm bankruptcies are up and many farms are getting federal funds to keep the afloat. The third year he was impeached for breaking constitutional funding laws but was bailed out by the GOP majority senate.

He has fired many people in the government and some refused to work for him. He is so toxic and coercive that many federal employees rubber stamps what Trump says. He disbanded the Pandemic Team in the NSA, fired folks, institutional knowledge was lost, and it got absorbed into another organization with different missions. Trump has weakened his administration by insisting on "yes people" to work for him.

This is problematic and I will give a couple examples. The directors of the NSA and DHS have absolutely no experience in preparing and mitigating for national disasters. These two men should be focal points for the pandemic preparation and response to the pandemic but both are AWOL. The director of DHS has the responsibility to coordinate with all federal agencies to develop a comprehensive and workable plan to support the states and civil authorities against various threats. He is the belly button, coordinator, planner, executor, and mitigatory for the nation but he has no experience. The one director we expect the most from is incompetent. Think about that and let that sink in. What is the significance of this? There is no coherent plan because there wasn't enough intelligence, competency, and imagination to produce a coherent plan. Timelines will show what should have been done earlier was not done. I will give two examples: PPEs, tests, and equipment was not ordered early enough so hospitals faced shortages. FEMA coordination with states was late. The implication is, FEMA had no clear picture of what the states and hospitals needed until the pandemic became full blown.

"[T]hey[, the Christian right,] have reconfigured their own character, intellect, and moral sensibilities to align with the disordered mind and deformed ethical world of Donald Trump."

That pretty much says it all, doesn't it.